Factory model schools: edtechs and teaching reconversion in Brazil and France

Abstract

This research seeks to contribute to a wide project entitled "The education policy in Brazil and in France: a study on labor relations in the territory", currently funded by FAPESP (The São Paulo Research Foundation) and led by Professor Selma Borghi Venco, as well as to the research agenda developed by the Study and Research Group on Educational Policies (GREPPE). We shall investigate how much and in what way Startups developing education technologies (Edtechs), both in Brazil and in France, influence the use in basic education of technologies related to teaching tasks such as lesson-planning, outcome-evaluating and class-mediating. We aim, thus, to discuss the determinations and consequences of the expansion of the education-technologies market on the working relations of teachers. Although there are significant historical and educational differences between the two countries, both have an expressive number of active Edtechs: France has 377, Brazil has 449 and, among these, 70.6% offer solutions for basic education and 35.1% are based in São Paulo (DESSAUX, 2020; CIEB; ABSTARTUPS, 2019). We shall be informed by a collection of census and financial data, but the main methodological procedures of our investigation shall be of a qualitative kind, since it shall comprise an exam of legal documents regulating education policies, of press material and of corporate documents. As an initial step, we shall do a systematic review of Brazilian and French literature on the matter. In a second moment, we shall carry out case studies on the incubators Cubo Itaú (Brazil) and Station F (France). At last, we shall map the social relations between investing capital, education capital and Edtechs. (AU)